BOOST GARDEN HEALTH ...
Theresa Lyngso, president of
Lyngso Garden Materials, Inc.,
Redwood City, for 20 years and
an active brewer of actively aerated compost tea, will teach a
class on the “Soil Foodweb” on
Saturday, Nov. 19, from 10:30
a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at Common
Ground Education Center, 559
College Ave., Palo Alto. The class
deals with increasing and nurturing aerobic organisms that make
fertile soil. Cost is $31. Information: Master Gardeners at 408282-3105, between 9:30 a.m.
and 12:30 p.m., Monday through
Friday or http://mastergardeners.
org
CARE FOR YOUR LAWN ... UC
Master Gardeners will offer a
free talk called “All About Lawns:
Sustainable Lawn Care & Options for Reducing or Replacing
Your Lawn” on Saturday, Nov.
19, from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at
the Mountain View Library, 585
Franklin St., Mountain View. The
talk will cover how to use less
water, fertilizer and herbicides
and possible replacements, such
as groundcovers and native
grasses that mimic the look of a
lawn, waterwise landscapes, edible gardens and meadows.

HOLIDAY TRADITIONS ... Filoli,
at 86 Cañada Road, Woodside,
opens its doors for day and evening holiday shopping boutique
and luncheons, Nov. 26 to Dec.
3. Tickets, which sell out quickly,
must be purchased in advance at
www.filoli.org.
FESTIVE CENTERPIECE ... Professional florist Susan Groves
will offer a class on making a
Thanksgiving centerpiece using
autumnal flowers on Tuesday,
Nov. 22, from 6:30 to 8 p.m. at
her studio in downtown Palo
Alto. Meet at Deborah’s Palm,
555 Lytton Ave., Palo Alto, and
walk to the nearby studio. Cost
is $65, which includes materials,
vase and instruction. Information:
650-328-0658 or infullbloom@
mindspring.com
FALL COLOR ... in Palo Alto can
be viewed on Greenwood Avenue, between Newell Road and
Hutchinson Avenue, during November when the Ginkgo bilobas
turn from green to yellow-gold. N
Send notices of news and events
related to real estate, interior design,
home improvement and gardening to
Home Front, Palo Alto Weekly, P.O. Box
1610, Palo Alto, CA 94302, or email
cblitzer@paweekly.com. Deadline is
Thursday at 5 p.m.

by Elizabeth Lorenz
photographs by Michelle Le

No theme
limits
Marilyn
Waterman’s
imagination

I

t started out as a cabbage patch. One
neighbor even wrote a poem about it.
Nowadays, Willows resident Marilyn
Waterman’s front yard is far from a cabbage
patch. There aren’t even any cabbages planted alongside the grapevines, apple tree, artichokes, strawberries, blueberries and rhubarb
that are planted there.
The yard defies description. As a writer,
one looks for themes, commonalities, something to tie a story together. But Waterman’s
front yard plants, while deliberately chosen,
are whimsical, unusual and certainly not uniform. And there is no theme.

For example, her so-called “Dr. Seuss”
tree, a deep maroon-leafed creature with
leggy branches, reaches over toward a bamboo plant, placed inside what appears to be a
horse trough. Actually, it is a horse trough.
If she had to be pinned down, Waterman
would say the garden is “Briggsdale, Colo.,
meets Napa Valley.”
In other words, she has a low fence outlining the corner lot made to resemble a rancher’s fence — similar to her father’s homestead ranch in Colorado, where there were
horses, cattle and an array of food-growing
plants.
If there is a theme to her front garden,
Waterman sums it up this way: “I like a plant
that when I look at it, it delights me.”
Hence her smoke tree, aka Dr. Seuss, is
allowed to grow leggy, to resemble a nonsensical tree from “The Lorax” or some other of
the children’s author’s books.
Interspersed among the fruit-bearing
plants and waving grasses are bright orange
dots of nasturtiums, and a ground cover that
is related to a Japanese maple.
“Size, form and color” is Waterman’s
mantra. Always look for variations in these
things when picking plants, she says, and of
course place them based on how much water and sun they need. She often tells clients
she consults with to place plants in threes or
fives for visual interest.
Waterman wasn’t always a garden consultant, although she says she’s always been a
gardener. She remembers gardening even in
Fremont where she grew up and her mother
staking out a sweetpea area against her back
fence.
In the 1980s, Waterman was a documen-

tary filmmaker. By the ’90s, she’d taken a
job at Hewlett-Packard producing marketing
videos. In that job, her skills as a visual artist
came to the fore, recognizing how color and
design would create the most impact.
But gardening was never far from her
heart. “I’d go into someone’s cubicle with a
plant screaming, ‘rescue me!’ I was always
taking orchids home.”
By 2000, it was time for a change, so
Waterman volunteered to be laid off during

‘I like a plant that when I
look at it, it delights me.’
— Marilyn Waterman,
garden consultant
a downsizing of the company.
She and her partner then spent a year in
Oaxaca, in southwestern Mexico, where they
gardened in the courtyard of their rental
home.
When she returned home, her father was
dying, so she spent lots of time by his bedside where they talked about the things they
had in common, like gardening. Before her
father died, Waterman knew that she wanted
to do something that involved a deeper connection with life. So she signed up for a horticulture class at a community college.
Eventually she got a job at Roger Reynolds
Nursery in Menlo Park where she worked for
more than five years. Her nursery mentors
helped her build confidence, interact with
customers and solve problems. “I intentionally treated it like grad school,” she said.
“One thing you do learn when you work
at a nursery is you don’t have answers,” she
said. Customers would come in with clip-

pings from sick plants and expect the experts
to have answers. She learned to say “I don’t
know, let’s look it up” often, as she and the
customer would head for the Sunset Western
Garden Book.
She took and passed the state’s nurseryman’s license test, began writing a column
for the San Jose Mercury News, and eventually started her garden consulting business.
She sees herself as a gardening guide, asking clients questions about what they like but
letting them make the final decisions.
“I used this yard to practice,” she said.
One of the perks of working at a nursery,
she said, was being able to take home sick or
damaged plants. “I would just watch them. I
was collecting a palette.”
Colors abound in the front garden, where
grasses grow in waves throughout the yard,
their colors changing depending on the
breeze, pink on one side, golden or green
on the other.
Her low-growing strawberry plants complement things like blue-green succulents
tucked underneath bushes. She also uses
plants to offset each other’s size, shape or
color.
The maroons, reds, oranges and light and
dark greens eventually lead the eye around to
the side gate, where you enter the backyard.
As you go through the gate, your feet
crunch on granite fines (finely ground granite stone), leaving Colorado behind, and entering: tropical Oaxaca.
The hardscape is now a mix of steppingstones and fines, as well as a low rectangular
ledgestone wall outlining a lush garden of
tropical flowers, rose bushes and an abutilon tree, heavy with salmon oblong globeshaped flowers. The tree needs pruning, she
said, but she’ll wait awhile because the hummingbirds are still enjoying the flowers.
The attractive, sunny yard is cozy with

several sitting nooks and always something
to look at. Waterman points proudly to a
volunteer tomato vine in the center, planted
next to, of all things, an exotic aloe plant that
will eventually rise 15 feet tall.
The yard is filled with pots of succulents
and cacti in various shapes and colors.
Hidden along the side of the house is a
vegetable garden as well as a crowded mini
nursery of collected “rescue” plants.
Although hugely a labor of love, Waterman’s garden makeover didn’t come cheap.
She estimates the front hardscaping (including labor and special irrigation to suit different plants’ needs) at about $10,000, and
the back, which included a stone patio, at
$20,000. She used mostly her own cuttings
and cast-off nursery plants.
Ultimately, all Waterman really wants
back from her garden is for it “to continually
engage me, to continually surprise me.”
One surprise she’s received from her garden is the interaction her front yard gives
her with the neighborhood. One neighbor
couldn’t resist giving her a poem about her
cabbage patch. Other passersby point out
real artichokes to their toddlers, or nibble
on the fresh grapes.
On one recent summer day, the garden
caught the delighted attention of a group
of door-to-door solicitors, who slowly wandered along the sidewalk in front of her
house commenting, pointing and smiling at
the plants. N
Freelance writer Elizabeth Lorenz can
be emailed at elizabeth_lorenz@yahoo.
com.

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Home & Real Estate
HOME SALES
Home sales are provided by
California REsource, a real estate
information company that obtains
the information from the County
Recorder’s Office. Information
is recorded from deeds after the
close of escrow and published
within four to eight weeks.

FORECLOSURES
Foreclosures are provided by
California REsource, a real estate
information company that obtains
the information from the County
Recorder’s Office. The date is the
recorded date of the deed when
the lender took title to the property.
The price is what the lender paid
for it (usually the mortgage balance
plus foreclosure fees). Each property is now owned by the lender
and is for sale, or will be for sale
soon, individually or through public
auction. Individuals should contact
a Realtor for further information.

recently read Mark Kurlanskyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s book,
â&#x20AC;&#x153;SALT: A World History.â&#x20AC;? As salt became used for keeping food from spoiling, longer trips with large numbers of
people could be taken without the threat
of starvation. Countries that had more salt
and could produce and sell it became the
center of the trading universe. Whole empires rose because they had gobs of salt.
Doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t that sound like what is currently
happening today, except instead of salt, we
are talking about OIL? I hope I live long
enough to read the history book that explains why oil was no longer what made
the world go round. Oil possession may
soon no longer be what wars are fought
over.
We can either transition from oil to alternative energy in a proactive manner, or
we can use every last bit of oil that we can
find in the ground and then have our world
come to a screeching halt. The latter just
doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t sound like the way to move forward for the next generations. If we are
really going to leave our children a world
thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s better off than what we found, we really need to wean ourselves off of this oil
addiction. And to do that we need a whole
new infrastructure made up of electric
charging stations instead of gas stations.
One of the primary ways to live the
â&#x20AC;&#x153;post-oilâ&#x20AC;? dream is to get our private vehicles filled up with something other than
gas. The cleanest form of alternativeenergy transportation is electric cars and
trucks. Today more than 25 percent of all
cars and light trucks on the road worldwide
are in the U.S. â&#x20AC;&#x153;More oil is consumed by
internal-combustion engines used in transportation than in any other human activity,â&#x20AC;? according to a story in the Christian
Science Monitor, Oct. 10, 2011.
There are great all-electric and plug-in
hybrid cars available with 100-300-mile
ranges between charges. Nissan, and our
local manufacturer Tesla, are producing
all-electric vehicles while Ford, Chevrolet
and Toyota have plug-in hybrids available
now with all-electrics coming soon.
The federal government is now encouraging installation of electric charging stations in local communities at no cost to
the applicant. And if you install a charging station on your commercial property,
it shows up on GPS maps so electric car
owners will know where they can park and
get a charge with their handy credit card.
Every shopping center and every nation3403 Hillview Ave. Stanford
Real Estate, install emergency
power generator, enlarge utility
yard enclosure on office campus,
$750,000
952 Colonial Lane T. Marquart,
kitchen and bathroom remodel,
$49,500
777 Christine Drive F. Wang, interior remodel, $35,292
1437 Hamilton Ave. B. Moffit,

wide business chain
(such as Dennyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s or
Applebeeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s) should
be flooding the government for requests
to have charging
stations put in their
parking lots. City
planners are anticipating a traffic jam of
plug-ins waiting to be
charged. From Seattle to Boston progressive planners are installing thousands of
charging stations.
What are the travelers going to do during the half hour or more while their car
is charging? They are going to eat or shop
or do both, and what better news can that
be for the American economy? And the
cost of charging your car at a charging
station is $2 an hour and depending on
the charge rate, that hour could get you
another 100 miles or so down the road.
What a bargain!
The other big consideration is that private car ownership is the biggest source of
rising energy consumption for transportation. If more high-speed rail existed in our
country, there would be fewer cars on the
road and fewer traffic accidents. Is it really
un-American to get in a vehicle that is carrying more than one or two persons?
We know that the oil addiction weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ve
been living with is causing national security issues whenever there is a threat of
supply disruption. We know that oil is a
limited resource and will be competed for
more fiercely with the rise of emerging
nations such as China, India and Brazil.
We also know that oil is one of the key
contributors to global warming.
So what are we doing about cutting our
own oil consumption? We live in a progressive community that is known for
looking ahead and creating new ways of
living. After all, we are Silicon Valley â&#x20AC;&#x201D;
home of the Internet and the iPad.
The transition away from oil for energy
is already happening. I, for one, am evaluating which electric car to get in line for. I
want to speed up the writing of that book
we have all been waiting for ... â&#x20AC;&#x153;Life After
Oil.â&#x20AC;? N
Iris Harrell is CEO and president of
Harrell Remodeling, Inc. in Mountain
View (www.harrell-remodeling.com).
She can be reached at 650-230-2900 or
irish@harrell-remodeling.com.

The Almanac space at
3525 Alameda de las Pulgas,
Menlo Park is for lease. Up to 4,000
square feet is available, but smaller
spaces can be negotiated. The space
includes plenty of parking and faces
high-trafďŹ c Alameda de las Pulgas.
For more information, contact
Jon Goldman 650.329.7988
or Eric Sorensen 650.329.7986
at Premier Properties.

Come home to this scenic country estate on
approximately 2.6 acres, featuring stunning
views of Windy Hill. The expansive 3-bedroom,
2.5 bath main house and separate guesthouse
were designed by Portola Valley architect, E.R.
Dethlefsen.
The home showcases an enchanting courtyard,
grand living room, family room/kitchen
ensemble and view-ﬁlled dining area, large loft,

ﬂower room and much more.
The energy efﬁcient home features a newlyinstalled photovoltaic system.
The versatile guesthouse is complete with
kitchen and bath, while the 3-car garage provides
extra storage and a large workroom.
The magniﬁcent gardens were designed and
implemented by Harlow Williams, Palo Alto.

158 Pinon Drive
Experience country living at its best from this
private, approximately 2.8 acre property located
in central Portola Valley. The main house features
5 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, and 3 half bathrooms,
living room, dining room, kitchen, family room,
recreation room, art room and ofﬁce/study.
Guesthouse with 2 bedrooms, 1 bath and kitchen.